Thanatophobia
by sleepysheepdog
Summary: Katniss and the monstrous boy from District 2 are playing to win. The short story of a girl who can't catch her breath, a boy who burns for battle, and the Games that brought them here.


Disclaimer: I definitely don't own the Hunger Games series. I love these raggedy children, but my psychological need for mind games tends to get in the way of my maternal instinct when it comes to fictional characters, which is me saying that they are better off without me. Cheers!

Note: I am taking liberties with the timeline because that's how I roll.

* * *

_Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid._

Frederick Buechner

* * *

**Prologue: Revelation**

Clove is the one who sidles up to her, wreathed in laurels and smelling of metal. Katniss knows she's from District 2, the district closest to hers if not in wealth than in purpose.

Masonry. Mines. Going deep into the earth and making it malleable.

Her body is sturdy if a bit on the petite side, and she's looking for someone to corner. Katniss is sure of this; the Girl on Fire was the Girl Who Hunted Illegally first and she can spot the heady intent of a predator a mile away.

"You must be bored," Clove comments easily, sipping wine and glancing around the room to scope out exits, weigh threats, and unnerve the Seam girl she's chosen to speak with, "It must be incredibly difficult to sit through this disgusting display of decadence when your family must be starving back home."

The tributes have been at the Capitol for a month, honing their skills and bulking up. This is just one more social function they've all been dragged to, laughable when considering they are appearing in the hope of delaying their impending deaths by gaining favor from the same people clamoring for the thrill of the Arena.

Katniss remains quiet for a moment, debating the merits of engaging with a vicious Tribute like Clove. She's a solitary person by nature, but her gut is telling her do this.

And Katniss, more than anything, never doubts her instincts.

Ignoring what is probably a jab and tamping down on the familiar feeling of anger, Katniss replies, "You must be the bored one if you've come to talk to me."

"Oh, no," Clove says, sharp smile flashing and then fading into a natural expression of introspection Katniss has never seen on her before, "I've been waiting for the chance to talk with you."

Katniss snorts, derisive and doubtful, "About what? The many ways you think you're going to kill me?"

Clove laughs, not a tinkling-bell laugh worthy of the countless interviews the Chosen have weathered, but the harsh bark of a wolf or a girl sheathed in knives.

"That's not appropriate dinner conversation, don't you think?" asks Clove, unperturbed by the barb, "I mean, of course, I'm going to split you wide open in the Arena, but out here, I find you the most interesting of us."

Katniss wants to be sick with disgust, wants to dig into this slender siren of a teenager and then shun her for the rest of the night and then until the Games begin.

But Katniss is tired. Peeta makes her uncomfortable with his unprecedented kindness and his wounded eyes. Her stylists are sweet twittering birds who glitz her up and steal away from the room, laughing and shining and nothing to which she can relate. Cinna can only keep her company for so long; he is a busy man with a full schedule.

Katniss is tired of the Capitol, soft and sweet as the candy they eat in bucket loads and the desserts they hide their enjoyment of. Her world used to be a forest, a family in a ghetto, and a ghost in a mine.

She has nothing to hold onto, no one to talk to, and there is something hard and steely and solid about Clove that is visible underneath her malicious words.

And Clove just happens to find her interesting.

She knows what Haymitch would say if he knew she was talking to such a deadly Career and maybe that's just the incentive she needs to respond.

"I have no idea what you mean."

"That's the beauty of it, firefly."

Despite having committed herself to the conversation, Katniss can think of nothing to say, especially about what is apparently her new nickname. What do you say to someone who might gut you in two months' time? How high am I on your hit list? Do you wait until you see the whites of their eyes before striking?

Clove seems to realize she will have to steer their discussion and turns to face the window, staring pensively at the clean well-lit streets below.

"We're new to this, too, Cato and I," Clove admits, "This isn't anything either of us has grown up in."

Deciding on neutrality, Katniss confesses, "I don't know much about other districts."

Katniss can see it, the moment when Clove smirks and dismisses the poor, ignorant Seam girl who is so busy scraping what little resources she can from the dregs of poverty that she can't be bothered to learn anything outside of her pathetic situation.

She can see the serrated titter, the husky giggle, and she can already hear Clove, one-year-younger-than-her-but-far-more-ready-Clove, saying, _How quaint._

She can see her fist rearing back, connecting with Clove's cheek, and being dragged from the room seething with rage.

That is not what happens.

The girl from District 2 acts as if this is no great fault on her part and nods, "It's not like the Capitol encourages inter-district knowledge."

"Only enough to fear and hate each other," Katniss murmurs, a slip in her control. Enough to make her stiffen and glare at her companion, as if Clove pried open her mouth and yanked out the words.

Clove merely gives a close-mouthed smile, minuscule and stony.

"Yes," she says.

"I thought you were a heartless, psychotic killing machine like your partner," Katniss tells her because she's already revealed how tactless she can be and if she actually wants to be a part of a conversation that will be anything more than stupid mindless chatter, she has to be herself.

Clove can take it or leave it. It doesn't really matter anyway, does it?

_But it does, it does_, something in her whispers. Urges her to listen.

She tries her best not to.

Eyes like coals, the Career doesn't give any indication of being anything but completely composed.

Slanting a look at her between her lashes, Clove shoots back, "I was under the impression you were a giggling, soppy, lovesick twit with no battle skills to speak of and poor taste in men."

Katniss clamps her mouth shut in an instant. But she should have known. The Capitol wants a story and so it makes a false one, buying into a lie to distract them from their selfish gluttony, their shiny shallow lives.

People like the one standing next to her, holding her champagne flute with the same nonchalance with which she grips a knife, they don't fall for bullshit given the time to spot it.

Something in Katniss' expression, a faint and sudden resemblance to a statue maybe or a silence enforced by the tightening of her jaw, makes Clove smile.

"Unlike bread boy, you are an abysmal liar. Something you might want to work on. All I had to do was look into your eyes and see the survivalist you really are instead of the smitten girl you play."

"You know," is all Katniss says.

Before Clove has the chance to reply, her name is called by the Rapunzel from District 1 and suddenly she is the person Katniss thought she was once more. Mercurial and jagged where she had been calculating and calm during their conversation.

"I know what you're thinking," Clove tells her, "And I'm both. I'm what I need to be just like you're what you need to be. All of us, even Cato, have something to fight for. It just depends on what angle you're looking at it from."

And then she's sweeping away, looking like she hasn't just disoriented Katniss into a turbulent stupor.

She doesn't like how the girl from District 2 just became something more than bared teeth and flashing daggers.

She doesn't like it at all.


End file.
